


this fog that chokes

by impetuousfool



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Allusions to abuse, Anxiety, Depression, M/M, because i am a homosexual and it is what i deserve, cw for loneliness, depersonalisation, episode 170 spoilers, i have rectified the fact that they were meant to kiss but didn't, i'm trans and gay i do whatever i like, perhaps this is also trans martin indulgence, self hatred, there is fluff at the end i promise, warning this is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24691165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impetuousfool/pseuds/impetuousfool
Summary: martin blackwood in the lonely what traumas will he revisit? (also the kiss we were robbed of)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 15
Kudos: 97





	this fog that chokes

**Author's Note:**

> rip to reddit homophobes but they're gay!!!!!!!!!!!!! boyfriends!!!
> 
> got my wrist splints and instantly committed crimes :)))

thoughts didn’t come easy anymore — had they ever come easy? had there ever been anything but this thick, numbing mist? — but instead they clung to the edges of his vision, like something ethereal. he could have one, feel one, if he tried, but it all felt deliciously silent; an imperfect stillness that crept down his spine, disconcerting and uncomfortable. something didn’t feel quite right in the way that the fog crept around him in a symmetrical spiral, the way every corner was right-angled and sharp. and yet the house heaved and shifted, breathed in his confusion and loss like it was all it had ever needed.

everything was uncomfortable here. sitting down felt like drowning and breathing felt like choking on dry, wretched air. he could feel his mind being probed and scrambled, the memories slipping away from him so gently he almost welcomed it. there was a name there on his tongue, once, one that sounded safe and cozy, like a man who tried to be loved so badly he’d forgotten to love himself. it was gone now. he was gone now.

sometimes he could see a face in the distant mess of memories, featureless but familiar, and he knew he cared about them, that there was something deep in the core of him that was drawn to him so acutely. who was he? oh!  _ he.  _ he had glasses, didn’t he? they… they were taped up where they’d been shattered, an arm torn off long before he’d known him. and he knew his name, or thought he did, but the harder he thought, the further it drifted. and then it was gone. 

there was something here with him, something living and pulsating in the dark. he could hear it echoing in the empty halls of his mind, beckoning him onwards, dragging empty words from his lips and kissing them goodbye. it recorded his nightmares then let the fog wash them away. the fog he’d let in through an open window. or had he? was he trying to let it out, to breathe air that didn’t taste so damp and putrid?

he’d walked past a mirror once (or was it a window?) but the face in the glass looked so strange, dead-eyed and wearied, with weights on his limbs. was that him? the dreadful thing in the mirror, the same boy from those dreams, the one who’d tore dresses on the playground. no, that wasn’t quite right. there were harsh voices, sneers, or maybe it was shouting. shrill and loud like a palm across skin, and it left a mark, red and open, as he sobbed.

he could smell something else there too, stronger than the damp salt-air, more potent. it stuck to the back of his throat, industrial and unnatural. an uneasy sterility bottled and packaged, splashed around this house (his house?) unrelentingly. it was too clean, every inch scrubbed and torn at until it was perfect, chemical burns on the floor and in his eyes. 

_ chemicals,  _ it was the chemicals. how could he forget? it had to be sterile, he had to make it so, because he wasn’t alone, because he had to watch her, keep her safe. yes, yes!  _ her.  _ her gentle voice and booming frown, the harsh judgement of a woman unforgiving. it wasn’t her fault, was it? the slipping memory of a son never trying hard enough, stepping around her with delicate feet when he’d never known how to not feel heavy. a little homewrecker, a heartbreaker, the family disappointment. couldn’t even bury his suits under the floorboards enough that she wouldn’t find them and shred them in front of his eyes.  _ but don’t worry, mother,  _ he’d say,  _ i’ll always be yours. _

not like that he couldn’t, she reminded him, then collapsed into a hospital bed. _ you’ve done it now, boy. look what you’ve done. _

why was everyone so empty here? they all spoke wordlessly, the life drained from their eyes, memory escaping them as they glided past, all elegance and loss. he asked if they knew their names, if they knew  _ his  _ name, but they screamed into a silent, unforgiving house, weeping into choking fog because they didn’t know. they couldn’t remember and neither could he, and the tears tore from his eyes as he collapsed back into a stiff, uncomfortable chair and hummed into a tape recorder again.

it was just him here, him and that tape recorder. it spoke sometimes, buzzed and whirred and encouraged him to speak, coaxed words painlessly from his mouth. it was easy to be afraid here, like a wave washing over a battered body, bloated and abandoned to the birds. but there weren’t any birds here. there never had been, had there? it’d just been him in a huge, empty house. nameless and alone. oh! except for the recorder. he cradled it to his chest and whispered into it, hoped it was listening. it was nice to let someone listen. like jon was listening.

_ jon. _

a lightbulb flickered above him as the name popped into his head, one he’d been stammering over for what felt like years. the quick flash of a face, but then like a wave it was gone again, filled with a deep pit of absence and darkness. what… what was his name again?  _ damn it,  _ what was his name? his heart had fluttered in his chest, so he knew it meant  _ something. _ was he someone before he was this? no, no, he didn’t think so. there was nothing there. just a wide expanse of nothing.

he didn’t like the fog, the way it made it so hard to think. things felt like they’d happened before, like they’d spiralled through his head hundreds of times, but they weren’t real. nothing was. 

god, was  _ he _ real?

it would be easier to sink to the floor and become part of the furniture, to become one of those ghostly things in the corridors, a shell of a thing that didn’t have to breathe, didn’t have to think. maybe he could let it drag him down, envelope him in bloodsucking wallpaper, because there was no one. it was just him in a ghost house, uncared for, unseen. he ought to be unheard too and— 

_ shit,  _ he was being too loud. she needed rest not this self-loathing racket. his mother… he had to… he. 

he didn’t  _ know.  _ why didn’t he know? 

nothing made sense. he felt flashes of love, of… of  _ care, _ but there was nothing here. just blank images in his mind and lost names. false memories and false faces, friends consumed by fear and monsters parading as gods. hungry and euphoric.

and then there was jon, so filled with self-loathing, with hurt. he’d always watched him from afar, blushed when their fingers brushed over a cup of coffee or they shared a glance that was just too long. that— that was it! jon. the face he saw, the blinking eyes framed with glasses, the one that made his heart buzz. but he’d never been the same, had he? he… he hated him, only shared glances after ripping at his heart. he thought he was useless.

he was right, of course. what’d he done but cause more pain?

there was a window open in this room, filled and screaming, open-mouthed, with fog. was that where it’d come from? there wasn’t anything out there when he looked, just a creeping expanse of nothing that seemed to puncture the house’s walls and crawl into his mouth, his eyes, his ears. he could taste it on his tongue and it was warm and smelt like home, but there was a bitterness like tears, the wails and screams of those trapped here.

but there was something tugging on the corner of his mind, bugging him far more than this oppressive dry heat. something about himself, who he was. the person in that window looked wrong but he had a name burned into the top of his head. martin, yes,  _ martin,  _ except it sounded wrong. not like this empty failure of a man, but like someone who was loved, who cared enough to melt into someone’s arms and lay there, someone that moulded themselves into the right shape until he fit alongside them.

_ he  _ wasn’t the sort of man you loved.

but he was… he was martin! martin blackwood, archival assistant. yes, yes, that was it! he remembered eyes, so piercing, so angry, so  _ dead,  _ but there were other eyes too. ones that didn’t judge him when they roamed over his body, that looked so soft and filled with pain. hurt eyes, caring eyes. someone who…  _ loved  _ him. but he’d left him, hadn’t he? left him to rot. no, no — that wasn’t quite right. there was something else, something nagging in the turns and clicks of the tape recorder. he… he was  _ looking _ for him. he had to keep talking, he had to keep remembering. he had to… 

jon. jon was coming. he was looking for him. he cared, right? he loved him. oh, god, he was in  _ love _ and he’d forgotten. no, that wasn’t the point. he wasn’t alone, not anymore, not in this pitiful place, and this  _ wasn’t _ his home. this was… this was  _ wrong.  _ he had to find him, he had to remember.

“you— you are martin blackwood. yes. you, you didn’t choose to be here.”

stronger, stronger, stronger. he kept shouting, kept reminding himself.  _ don’t forget yourself, don’t forget him.  _ he kept chanting it like a mantra, clung to it like the last thing that mattered because he wasn’t alone. he  _ wasn’t. _

“martin!”

he looked up from the fog, from the depths of a swirling tape, and heard his voice ripple through him. it was him. it was  _ jon.  _ and he could see him, that familiar, warm face, so worried and terrified. he… he hadn’t left. he was looking for him. martin started to cry, tears flowing like a river, words running away from him. and jon held him, let him collapse to his knees weakly against his chest, all the energy stripped from his bones as he recited those words through his head.  _ you are not alone anymore. you are martin blackwood and you are in love. _

jon sunk down next to him and cupped his cheek so delicately that martin thought he might break. feeling this much care coming from a man who’d once ignored him, seeing him so bare and vulnerable, made his heart ache. he pressed his forehead against his and just breathed, reminded himself that, yes, this was the lonely, but it was not him anymore. martin tied jon to his humanity in a land of fear and monsters and jon loved him enough to make up for the years of loneliness. 

_ not anymore  _ was like a promise, an angel singing in the dark, and martin sunk into it wordlessly, into  _ him.  _ he held on for dear life at the edge of the world he’d known, illusions washing away in the streams of tears down his face. he watched the man in front of him, wandered the halls of his eyes and sought his warmth in this choking fog, silently connecting with him where words felt useless. and while they sat there slowly becoming one, he thought he might want to just stay forever, so long as it was with this wonderful, wonderful man.


End file.
